FITT Roadster Class
(Disclaimer: These are critical reviews so I will be looking for faults, please try not to feel insulted or that I'm intentionally picking on anyone, that is not my aim. If you feel hard done by or that I am incorrect in my assumptions then I will happily remove the review or retest at your request.)
@787bcgr – Elise Type 72
0:51.801
DC – 7.3
Entry: Brakes were effective for getting the car slowed but took grip away from the front wheels while in use which could lead to a bit of ploughing on entry to turn 1. This car moves around a fair bit, the springs react quickly and keep things smooth and make curbs less of an issue but the excess weight transfer can lead to instability if you are not extremely gentle with it. The turn in was fairly good in terms of grip, a slight delay between input and reaction but not overly troubling.
Mid: Really good rotation if you kept the car neutral on entry but could easily lead to delayed oversteer if you needed to make corrections to your line mid turn. Felt fairly composed for the most part, just demanded a clean entry.
Exit: A fair bit of oversteer here, the rear always wanted to swing around like a pendulum on exit. It felt like there was just too much weight and movement in the rear of the car and the tyres just couldn't resist. I think its probably a result of the soft rear dampers and ARBs not shifting any of the weight transferred to them during mid corner forward again, the weight just stays there puts the rear tyres under too much stress to deal with the added acceleration.
Overall Enjoyment: A testing car that you have to drive with the precision of a surgeon, too much of anything and it would bite back. I ran a similar setup during tuning and I'm aware of how fast they can be if you can get that one perfect lap where all the pieces fall into place, unfortunately I just couldn't string it together within the 12 laps, there was always some small mistake killing the times. Just to hard to predict and impossible to counter the inevitable weight shift on the back axle.
@Bowtie-muscle – VX220
0:51. 643
DC – 7.5
Entry: The car felt incredibly stable, felt absolutely glued to the road. This inspired confidence initially but I found it was a little bit reluctant to rotate and slow to respond to inputs. The brakes felt solid and got the car slowed down without fuss or too much extra understeer. I found the car to struggle on the entry to turn 1, just didn't like turning in at speed, on the following corners it was very well mannered if perhaps not the most exciting.
Mid: Stable and clean with reasonable grip, didn't seem to move around much in the mid corner which was a nice change but it would always develop understeer as a result of the 50/50 weight bias, needed a bit of junk in the trunk to keep the nose pushed in once the springs were loaded. The understeer wasn't crippling but I did feel like the car would go a lot faster if it was a bit looser.
Exit: Not bad, a bit of understeer and the diff seemed a bit too open which made it feel quite vague on the throttle and lacking punch out of the corners. It would also get quite upset on the last corner going over the bumps on the last corner which seemed fairly out of character with the rest of the lap, I think this was also down to the open diff as I saw the inside tyre lighting up briefly a few times.
Overall Enjoyment: A solid and well put together car but I just wish it would let me drive it a bit harder. Felt a little removed from the experience as a driver, I knew I could go through some corners a lot more aggressively and faster but the car demanded a much more conservative approach. As a stable car it functioned fine and performed as expected, stable and smooth through entry, mid and exit but it wasn't for me.
@DaBomm4 - TF160
0:51.988
DC – 7.9
Entry: Felt quite responsive and keen to turn in but also a little bit vague, I'd hazard a guess that this was a result of the camber you were running. This said, it had a nice transition between grip and slipping which made the car quite forgiving when you turned in too soon. Brakes felt good, got the car stopped but didn't interfere with the front end grip
Mid: Fairly stable with decent rotation, sometimes got a little bit of understeer as a result of all four wheels letting go but as long as you didn't ask too much of it the car would do more or less as you asked. I think this is where it was losing the most time due to the camber, just couldn't sustain the same speeds through the mid section of the corners.
Exit: Not bad, a bit slippery and again a touch gutless due to a really open diff, held its lines fairly well enough but would get nervous on the throttle.
Overall Enjoyment: I quite liked the little MG, it felt a bit odd at times but performed well from a drivers perspective. If I hadn't had the speedo in front of me highlighting the speed loss I would have said it was performing as well as any of the others.
@DolHaus - Elise Type 72
0:50.879
DC -8.5
Overall Enjoyment: Pretty happy with how this one turned out
@ImToLegitToQuit – TF160
0:51.746
DC – 8.3
Entry: Initially this thing felt awful, as I was weaving it back and forth to try and get a feel for the thing all I could feel was understeer, the car felt heavy and unresponsive at low speeds. This feeling opinion continued over the first lap as I was trying to drive it cleanly and minimise the understeer, it wasn't until the 2nd lap when I went into the first corner a bit faster than anticipated and put loads of force into the springs that the car woke up and started performing. You have to really push on entry to get anything out of the car but it comes alive when you do and I liked that. The brakes were a bit too aggressive and did cause their share of ploughing on entry but a simple fix.
Mid: As long as you hold onto your speed the car will keep sticking and rotating, otherwise you might start getting too much understeer. A bit all or nothing but fun none the less.
Exit: This was the cars main Achilles heel around Brands Hatch, it was so easy to light up the outside rear tyre and drift the car on exit. While this was an awful lot of fun the engine just doesn't have the guts to maintain exit speed unless the tyres are getting all of it to the ground. I think it might just be a little too stiff, drop the spring rates by 0.5-1.0 kgfm on both ends and you'll be able to maintain the handing characteristics but make it much more accessible
Overall Enjoyment: I liked this one because it surprised me and responded well to aggressive corner entry and held firm through the mid part. I think it just needed to be pushed a little too hard to make it work, there was no way to get enough energy into the suspension on some corners without compromising exit strategy. You could push it as hard as you liked on entry but it would bite you in the ass when you tried to make the car accelerate.
@Motor City Hami – Elise Type 72
0:51.027
DC - 9
Entry: Extremely well composed, feels solid and aggressive on turn in and sticks like glue. Felt strangely heavy, this wasn't an issue though as it made the car feel secure rather than unresponsive. Brakes caused a tiny bit of straightening up on entry to the first corner but felt solid everywhere else.
Mid: Very committed and purposeful once you got into the corner, it would hold its line extremely well and as long as you had hit your marks on turn in then the car was great. The only slight downside was that if you committed to the wrong line then it was hard to adjust without backing out completely.
Exit: Smooth and planted, never heard any squirming from the rear tyres or got caught out by wheelspin. I found that I couldn't get on the power as early as I would have liked on turn 2 but the drive I was getting was solid enough for it not to matter that much.
Overall Enjoyment: Really enjoyed pushing this car, it just responds so well to driver input and feels solid without feeling prohibitive. I'm sure with a few more laps I could get a lot more out of the car as I was chipping little bits of time off with every lap and rarely finding the limit. Fantastic work, well done
@Otaliema – Elise Type 72
0:51.350
DC – 6.8
Entry: The brakes were strong but caused a bit of lift off rotation entering the first corner as all the weight transferred forwards and made the rear go light. Had good rotation but I just couldn't get confident with the car.
Mid: Good rotation and mostly stable in the lower speed corners but understeer built up a surprising amount in the last section. The car still felt odd a lot of the time, sort of stable but wobbly, made it really hard to be confident with as you never quite knew how it was going to react
Exit: Easy enough to get out of the corners but a bit lacklustre in power delivery and the rear would continue to wallow around for a long while after the corner. It didn't have much of an effect on traction but could affect next corner entry if there wasn't time for it to settle.
Overall Enjoyment: It was reasonably quick but just felt so odd all the time, really struggled to get my head around the car as it never seemed to behave the same from one lap to the next. It would sometimes understeer for no reason or suddenly switch to oversteer, you could never predict the car and that made it impossible for me to get comfortable with. I think the rear needs sharpening up a lot to stop it bobbing around, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the random understeer is caused by the car bottoming out at the back.
@praiano63 – Elise Type 72
0:51.052
DC – 8.5
Entry: Completely neutral, no oversteer or understeer on entry, just point it where you want it to go and let the car do the work. The brakes felt good and solid, the didn't seem to steal any grip away from the front wheels on entry despite the front bias.
Mid: Again very neutral and easy to use through through most corners although I noticed a bit of understeer building in the faster corners under higher lateral load. I suspect the soft nature of the front springs were the cause of this but I would only change them for a high speed circuit.
Exit: No issues here, couldn't really make the car oversteer on exit without intentionally upsetting it or clipping the grass. Extremely user friendly, neutral/very slight understeer balance.
Overall Enjoyment: This car was very consistent and easy to use, felt extremely similar to my own car. I didn't have any strong feelings towards the car though, I didn't feel that involved with the drive and felt sort of like a passenger most of the time. This is testament to the build as I'm sure anyone could drive similar lap times regardless of skill but I just prefer something more involving that makes me work for my lap times. A technically excellent tune but slightly lacking in passion
@Ridox2JZGTE – VX220
0:51.802
DC – 7
Entry: Fairly neutral, the brakes didn't really do anything for me as they felt a bit wooden but they got the car stopped well enough. Slight delay between action and reaction from the steering, possibly down to overly stiff springs.
Mid: Could get a bit twitchy in mid corner which made it hard to gain confidence with. The car had decent rotation but would switch to oversteer so quickly that it couldn't be fully utilised particularly in turn 1 where I ended up going into the sand trap backwards on more than a few occasions.
Exit: Again a fair amount of difficult to manage oversteer, I really feel that the car is far too stiff which is making the natural oversteer characteristics of the MR layout much harder to work with. Its too easy to over correct when trying to pull the car into line, it just snaps at you constantly so there is very little chance of recovery once traction is broken.
Overall Enjoyment: Another car that needs to be driven with delicate fingertips, I'm sure if you spent enough time with the car and could smooth out your inputs entirely then there would be a good lap in there somewhere. In its current state it feels like its forcing its own demise, the stiffness is making the car very easy to start sliding but impossible to manage once it happens. It put in a decent lap time despite being 10pp below spec but I just found this car too critical to be fun.
@shaunm80 – Elise Type 72
0:51.504
DC – 7.7
Entry: Very planted and stable, the car felt neutral and easy to predict. Brakes felt solid enough and didn't interfere with entry grip or cause weight transfer when released. Slight understeer when compared to its more rear heavy brethren but manageable at the expense of entry speed.
Mid: Again very neutral and predictable, the car would hold its line fairly well. It would develop slight understeer as the weight transferred to the rear but entirely manageable and predictable. The feeling of the car was again quite good but it just lacked a little bit of speed
Exit: Planted and stable for the most part but oversteer can be induced if you're a bit vigorous with the throttle. When the car breaks lose it is extremely easy to manage, a small bit of countersteer and the rear will fall in line without fuss or excessive speed loss. Good direct drive out of the corners if you're not trying to push, puts the power down very well.
Overall Enjoyment: This car is really easy to drive but does lack that bit of extra pace. Feels like it would make a good offline race car due to how predictable and forgiving it is but for time attacks its just lacking pace. I enjoyed the stability for the first few laps but quickly hit a speed barrier and just couldn't get any more out of the car, a good beginners car but I felt certain aspects were preventing me from going as fast as I know I can.
@sinof1337 – Elise Type 72
0:51.400
DC – 7.8
( I have copy/pasted shaunM80's review as the two cars were vertically identical)
Entry: Very planted and stable, the car felt neutral and easy to predict. Brakes felt solid enough and didn't interfere with entry grip or cause weight transfer when released. Slight understeer when compared to its more rear heavy brethren but manageable at the expense of entry speed.
Mid: Again very neutral and predictable, the car would hold its line fairly well. It would develop slight understeer as the weight transferred to the rear but entirely manageable and predictable. The feeling of the car was again quite good but it just lacked a little bit of speed
Exit: Planted and stable for the most part but oversteer can be induced if you're a bit vigorous with the throttle. When the car breaks lose it is extremely easy to manage, a small bit of countersteer and the rear will fall in line without fuss or excessive speed loss. Good direct drive out of the corners if you're not trying to push, puts the power down very well.
Overall Enjoyment: As with shaunm80's car it was very stable and predictable throughout all sections of the track. I think yours had better parts selection which gave better acceleration out of the final corner. Your slightly stiffer rear dampers made the car more prone to entry understeer but it held its speed better through the late section of the corner.
@xande1959 – Elise Type 72
0:51.106
DC - 8.4
Entry: Neutral, stable and easy to predict. Felt like it had a lot of grip and inspired confidence.
Mid: Lots of grip and very stable, didn't hold quite as much speed as some of the other cars through the mid section of the corner but was very consistent. One thing I noticed on turn 2 was that the automatic transmission kept leaving me in 3rd rather than dropping into 2nd.
Exit: Again stable and predictable, got the power down onto the track without any issues or difficulties. Rotation was maintained and I felt I could get on the power nice and early.
Overall Enjoyment: The car was nice and responsive but remained stable throughout the whole test. It was by far the most consistent car I've tested as all 12 laps were within 0.1 of each other. This is good for racing but suggests that I would struggle to get more out of the car if I needed to push to catch an opponent. A good car but could do with being a bit more raw and engaging.
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